Someone asked me recently why I don’t advertise imp-ressions using adwords, magazines and online banners. Then they asked me why I don’t commit a whole load of time to increasing my web traffic to the website? Being curious, they then asked me how I still get loads of enquiries after I don’t do any of these things???

Well, the answer is simple. Word of Mouth marketing.

The most important element to anyone’s business should be word of mouth marketing, which is exceptionally powerful, cheap and incredibly effective.

How do you achieve this? My 10 ways to improve word of mouth marketing are:

1. Don’t produce a good job, do a great job of all your work
2. Produce a professional job, not something that looks like you knocked it up in 5 minutes
3. Be great at personal service and communicate with your clients regularly
4. Be generous, provide support and advice freely, or offer to help someone out
5. Ensure that you are a trustworthy, reliable and honest person
6. Show your expertise by keeping up to date with stuff that may put your clients at an advantage
7. Ask your clients questions on how they’re getting on and show an interest in their business.
8. Show your clients what you’ve done for others. They may not be interested in you doing it for them, but someone in their network might
9. Be contactable. Answer every phone call and respond to every e-mail
10. Differentiate your business cards from the norm and give them to all your clients, friends, colleagues, parents, partners, family, etc etc

Ultimately, adding all the above together, let others do the advertising for you when they meet their contacts: “I know someone who could help you with that”…. Clients will not market you if:

1. You don’t show expertise and a very high level of knowledge and skill
2. You don’t do a great job and add value to their business
3. You aren’t trustworthy enough,never answer the phone and don’t respond to e-mails
4. You don’t help others out and offer advice freely
5. You are passive and inert – i.e. you answer questions but don’t ask any back

Word of mouth marketing is tremendously powerful and links very well into your networking skills. Letting others do the work for you and say goodbye to wasted funds in adwords, magazines and pointless e-mail shots.

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